Dutch Open Hackathon 2016

Dutch open Hackathon

The third edition of the Dutch Open Hackathon (DOH) will take place in the weekend of 9, 10 and 11 December. In previous editions, a Node1 consultant has supported DOH participants as a pitch coach. This edition, we helped generate publicity for DOH by moderating a workshop about the theme working with open data at the How to Get There summit. CIC Rotterdam organizes this years’ event in the Groothandelsgebouw in Rotterdam. Dutch corporations such as KLM, PostNL, CM Telecom, Kamer van Koophandel (KvK), Cisco Spark, Philips, and the Police provide – temporarily – access to data sources using APIs that enable developers, designers, data scientists and marketers to build and present a working prototype of a digital product. These prototypes should apply to at least one of the four themes: At Home, In The City, Doing Business and On The Go.

Smart devices, sensors and package trackers generate data that can be used to improve home security, make houses smart and inform you about the expected moment of delivery generate data for the At Home track. Philips is the corporation with the most APIs in this category. The technology company provides data of a connected shaver, a food recipe API and a set of sensor data. It challenges you for example to create an advisory app that helps every man to find the right shaver and method of shaving or to come up with a new business model for a product that does not sell itself easily.

Keeping neighbourhoods safe and enriching delivery methods with innovative services are challenges that belong to the In The City track. PostNL, the largest Dutch mail service, is omnipresent In The City. Thus, it can provide APIs to validate home addresses, indicate the location of PostNL shops and public mailboxes. PostNL searches for new opportunities to maximize the rate of delivered packages make sure that the package comes into the hands of the right person and monetize its unused capacity.

Challenges corresponding to the Doing Business track relate to how you can prevent improve security, allow different business actors to connect within their ecosystem and collaborate more effectively. Cisco Spark and CM Telecom provide tools such as messaging APIs to ease Doing Business,

The On The Go track consists of data and challenges for making traveling more enjoyable and transporting more efficient. KLM grants access to flight schedules with corresponding prices, connection information and actual departing and arrival times. KLM wants to be inspired in how to deal with for example flight disruption. Schiphol publishes geo-data, such as its maps, walking routes, walking distances and points of interests and customer feedback that has been given on the toilets. It deals with questions such as how it can optimally guide the passenger through their physical journey using digital solutions or can gain insights into which customer touch point preceded and will succeed the current one.

Next to these theme-related data sources, grants the KvK access to anonymous data of companies, fictive financial records, aggregated survivability numbers and a few non-disclosed data sources. Therefore, it might be too soon to conclude whether it actually provides data on which you can build a useful prototype. The police provide other non theme-specific data, such as missing and wanted persons, registered crimes, and police stations. Furthermore, they provide an API to report stolen items and to search for lost goods.

Already, more than 300 participants have registered for this event eager to code and present an open data driven app or other digital product. It promises to be an innovative Dutch Open Hackathon 2016. Registration is still open.

Do you want to know more about the Dutch Open Hackathon 2016? Samir can help you!